Yes, I’ve finally returned to finished writing about New Zealand. It’s just been so busy traveling around that I haven’t had time to sit down and do it. Oh well, here we are now. So the last I wrote, I was in Queenstown loving the adventurous culture. There was always something going on or some new adrenaline challenge, I could have stayed there for a month! However, since we only had a few days there, we had to narrow it down to a few of the most important activities.
One of the things I knew we had to do was go to visit Milford Sound. However, I wasn’t really keen to drive all the way there in our sweet rental van – it was 5 hours each direction, so it would have been one really massive day or it would have taken us two days. However, we got lucky and found a great deal to go on a Jucy bus. I am so glad we did that, because then I could just spend the whole drive enjoying the scenery. In my opinion, the scenery on the drive was better than what we saw in Milford Sound itself.
There were just towering mountains all around you, waterfalls everywhere you looked and such vibrant blue sky above you – just beauty everywhere you looked. The sound itself was carved out by glaciers thousands of years ago, so the cliffs are almost completely vertical. There is no gentle slope, they simply fall from the top all the way into the water below. Truly beautiful surroundings, I’m so glad we were able to see it.
The final thing we did in Queenstown was the Nevis Swing. For those of you who have never heard of it, it is a huge swing that does a 70 meter freefall, then swings you across the valley for a few minutes. I really wanted to do a bungy jump, but I’m so afraid that my feet will come out of the bindings, so this was a great alternate. The other fun thing is that Zach and I were able to go together. You walk out on this skinny little bridge into a little enclosure that is just floating in the middle of the gorge. I think the walk out there is one of the scariest bits, since the wind is blowing and you have so much time to look down and think about what you’re doing, but once you get out there, it goes very quickly.
After we finished our adrenaline kick, we started working our way up the west coast. First stop? Franz Josef to walk on the glacier.
I know, more adventure activities for us! I do think it’s funny that I had to come half way around the world to walk on a glacier – we have a few near us in Colorado, but I don’t think they’re anywhere near as famous or exciting as Franz Josef. We did the full day glacier hike and it was amazing. You walk about an hour through the rainforest to get to the face of the glacier. There, you strap on your crampons and charge up the ice. Once you’ve got the crampons on, you can go up and down the ice face, climb the stairs and go along the rocky bits with no problems. The ice is so beautiful and blue, you can’t help but stare up at it. We were able to go into a few ice caves and walk in a few crevices, it was heaps of fun. Some of the crevices were so narrow that you had to take off your backpack and shuffle your feet to get through them – definitely an adventure.
After Franz Josef we continued our trek up the west coast. We stopped at a few of the towns either to stay for a night or just to grab a quick meal. One of my favorite stops was to see the Pancake Rocks (called Punakaiki). To this day they still have no idea how the rocks were formed, but somehow they grew in layers that cause them to look like pancakes. We were there at the wrong time of day and were unable to see the blowhole in action, but it was still a really cool site.
Our last couple of days were really calm. We were just enjoying the beautiful views along the coast, where you’ve got rainforest on one side and beaches on the other side. It’s difficult to keep your eyes on the road when all you want to do is look everywhere! Our final day we had to drive from the west coast, across the “mountains” (I know, I’m really spoiled by Colorado) and into Christchurch. Normally this wouldn’t be a huge deal, but we were in the super sweet campervan, and she just didn’t do well on hills. It also didn’t help that it was pouring down rain – you can see below how much fun it was to drive over the pass that day!
Finally, we arrived back in Christchurch. It was so sad to say goodbye to Zach! I had an absolutely incredible time with him in NZ, minus the crappy weather we had the whole time. I am so glad he was able to come out to visit – hopefully now that he’s experienced a new country, he’ll keep traveling and discovering new things. If not, at least we had an amazing campervan experience in the South Island!
After Zach flew out, I met up with my friend Angela again. She was kind enough to let me stay with her for a week, and just tag along with her wherever she went. The first thing we did was go to a horse show. She has a sweet horse named Milan (who I got to ride!) that she does shows with. I had never been to a horse show, so I didn’t know just how much work goes into it – they put horse mascara on, put hair extensions in their tails, paint their hooves black and braid their entire manes! It takes hours to get the poor horses ready for these shows. After all this work and effort, I was soooo excited that Angela won Supreme Grand Champion. That meant she won the entire show and got to lead the parade!
Afterwards we went back to her house for the rest of the weekend. It is not a super old house but her landlords are complete jerks, so imagine my surprise when I got e-coli! Yes, I made it safely through India, Morocco, SE Asia and other third world countries without getting sick at all, only to get e-coli in New Zealand. What are the chances of that? Good thing that I had the antibiotics to kill it. Needless to say, I think she’s glad she was already moving out of that place! We spent the rest of the week going up and down the west coast for her job. She sells fertilizer and feed to dairy farms so I got to learn more than I’ve ever wanted to know about dairy cows. I was lucky enough that one of her clients even let me come and help with milking the cows a little bit! Quite an experience and I only got a little bit of poo on me. Finally, at the end of our week of exploring, we went to the amazing Hanmar hot springs. It was nice to relax and just think about all of the incredible scenery I had experienced while in New Zealand. What an absolutely beautiful country!!
One of the things I knew we had to do was go to visit Milford Sound. However, I wasn’t really keen to drive all the way there in our sweet rental van – it was 5 hours each direction, so it would have been one really massive day or it would have taken us two days. However, we got lucky and found a great deal to go on a Jucy bus. I am so glad we did that, because then I could just spend the whole drive enjoying the scenery. In my opinion, the scenery on the drive was better than what we saw in Milford Sound itself.
The final thing we did in Queenstown was the Nevis Swing. For those of you who have never heard of it, it is a huge swing that does a 70 meter freefall, then swings you across the valley for a few minutes. I really wanted to do a bungy jump, but I’m so afraid that my feet will come out of the bindings, so this was a great alternate. The other fun thing is that Zach and I were able to go together. You walk out on this skinny little bridge into a little enclosure that is just floating in the middle of the gorge. I think the walk out there is one of the scariest bits, since the wind is blowing and you have so much time to look down and think about what you’re doing, but once you get out there, it goes very quickly.
They encourage you to try different ways of swinging, so the first time we went backwards. It is so scary because you can’t see where you’re going! They also surprised us, so there was no countdown or anything, just a drop. It was so incredible, before we were even finished the swing we had already decided to do it again. The second time I decided to be really daring – I went upside down….wow, did that really double the fear factor! Zach went right side up so he could get pictures of us – I really love the one below. I was so terrified and loved it so much that I made Zach go one final time on his own, so that he could also experience the upside down drop. The Nevis Swing was definitely our highlight of Queenstown!
After we finished our adrenaline kick, we started working our way up the west coast. First stop? Franz Josef to walk on the glacier.
I know, more adventure activities for us! I do think it’s funny that I had to come half way around the world to walk on a glacier – we have a few near us in Colorado, but I don’t think they’re anywhere near as famous or exciting as Franz Josef. We did the full day glacier hike and it was amazing. You walk about an hour through the rainforest to get to the face of the glacier. There, you strap on your crampons and charge up the ice. Once you’ve got the crampons on, you can go up and down the ice face, climb the stairs and go along the rocky bits with no problems. The ice is so beautiful and blue, you can’t help but stare up at it. We were able to go into a few ice caves and walk in a few crevices, it was heaps of fun. Some of the crevices were so narrow that you had to take off your backpack and shuffle your feet to get through them – definitely an adventure. 
Our last couple of days were really calm. We were just enjoying the beautiful views along the coast, where you’ve got rainforest on one side and beaches on the other side. It’s difficult to keep your eyes on the road when all you want to do is look everywhere! Our final day we had to drive from the west coast, across the “mountains” (I know, I’m really spoiled by Colorado) and into Christchurch. Normally this wouldn’t be a huge deal, but we were in the super sweet campervan, and she just didn’t do well on hills. It also didn’t help that it was pouring down rain – you can see below how much fun it was to drive over the pass that day!
Finally, we arrived back in Christchurch. It was so sad to say goodbye to Zach! I had an absolutely incredible time with him in NZ, minus the crappy weather we had the whole time. I am so glad he was able to come out to visit – hopefully now that he’s experienced a new country, he’ll keep traveling and discovering new things. If not, at least we had an amazing campervan experience in the South Island!
After Zach flew out, I met up with my friend Angela again. She was kind enough to let me stay with her for a week, and just tag along with her wherever she went. The first thing we did was go to a horse show. She has a sweet horse named Milan (who I got to ride!) that she does shows with. I had never been to a horse show, so I didn’t know just how much work goes into it – they put horse mascara on, put hair extensions in their tails, paint their hooves black and braid their entire manes! It takes hours to get the poor horses ready for these shows. After all this work and effort, I was soooo excited that Angela won Supreme Grand Champion. That meant she won the entire show and got to lead the parade!
Afterwards we went back to her house for the rest of the weekend. It is not a super old house but her landlords are complete jerks, so imagine my surprise when I got e-coli! Yes, I made it safely through India, Morocco, SE Asia and other third world countries without getting sick at all, only to get e-coli in New Zealand. What are the chances of that? Good thing that I had the antibiotics to kill it. Needless to say, I think she’s glad she was already moving out of that place! We spent the rest of the week going up and down the west coast for her job. She sells fertilizer and feed to dairy farms so I got to learn more than I’ve ever wanted to know about dairy cows. I was lucky enough that one of her clients even let me come and help with milking the cows a little bit! Quite an experience and I only got a little bit of poo on me. Finally, at the end of our week of exploring, we went to the amazing Hanmar hot springs. It was nice to relax and just think about all of the incredible scenery I had experienced while in New Zealand. What an absolutely beautiful country!!
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